U.S. giving more humanitarian aid to Syria, officials say

The Associated Press

Published
12:00 am EDT, Thursday, August 2, 2012

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is giving $12 million in new humanitarian aid for beleaguered Syrian civilians as the civil war rages between rebels and the Assad regime in Aleppo and elsewhere, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The announcement of the new aid, which could come later Thursday, will take total U.S. humanitarian relief to $76 million since Syria's conflict began last year. The aid is separate from the $25 million in communications equipment and medical supplies that Washington is providing directly to the Syrian opposition.

The additional relief money will go to the U.N. refugee agency, the international Red Cross, UNICEF and other organizations providing assistance to Syrian civilians, said the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to divulge the information.

More than 200,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and hundreds of thousands more are displaced within Syria. In Aleppo alone, nearly two weeks of fighting has forced more than 200,000 people to flee their neighborhoods or the city altogether, according to the U.N. Aleppo is Syria's largest city.

While the Obama administration's attempts to halt the bloodshed through diplomatic means have been frustrated, it is trying to step up its assistance for civilians trapped in the violence and the rebel groups battling President Bashar Assad's superior armed forces.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. had added $10 million to its "nonlethal assistance" to the Syrian opposition. That's in addition to the $15 million announced earlier this year.

The effort also aims at building relationships with groups the U.S. believes will play an important role in Syria after the Assad regime falls.

Over the last 17 months, the government has bitterly repressed protesters and tried to stamp out the insurgency. But recent offensives by anti-Assad forces in Aleppo, Damascus and other regions of the country have raised hopes in Washington that the tide of the war may be turning.

Activists estimate that 19,000 people have been killed since March 2011.

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